Nismah Osman, Songwriter and Music Producer

  Welcome back, friends, to our podcast, Unlocking Your World of Creativity. And we talk to singer songwriters, authors, creative practitioners of all kinds. We've talked to filmmakers. We've talked to Broadway musical writers. So we just have a good time talking to creators about their process and also their journey.

And, a lot of times the business side has to come in because our passion wants to meet profit. And that's a subject really close to the heart of our today's guest, Nesma Osman, Nesma, welcome to the program.

Hello. Hello.

Happy to be here. It's good to have you. And I think as we delve into your many year music career, I love to start at the bottom of the resume.

And I love that on your website, you said, I started with an expensive music degree. The expensive part always comes in, doesn't it? Yep. Oh, yeah. Tell us how you got inspired to pursue this idea of music not just a passion but a career. .

I would say music started for me fairly young.

, I can remember writing songs, or attempting to write songs, I should say, as young as,, seven or eight. And then, I just had the music bug, and I remember we had this old out of tune, upright piano in our garage. And I would just go out there and tinker with it and play with it.

And, I ended up teaching myself how to hear music that way. And then one thing led to another, and I was, I picked up the guitar. And then when I was in middle school, actually, I had my first. Experience in a recording studio. I must have been about 11 or 12.

And , they were not good. They're not good songs, but it was still, it was cool. I was a kid and I was at school and I was like, Hey, I just went to a recording studio. Look at me, and I just kept going from then. And in high school, I

I just did all the music stuff, the choir stuff and the musical stuff and I decided I wanted to dive headfirst into this crazy industry of music. So here we are all these years later.

Here we are indeed. And I was reading about your creative process. Certainly there's the lyric, there's the melody.

And then you talk about the concept of the song. Give us a little insight into that for you. I

love that question, because I'm a songwriting geek at heart, so whenever I get to talk about songwriting, I'm excited. So yeah, the concept is, it's the heart of the song it's what the song is about, so to speak.

When I was at Berkeley, actually, the really expensive school I was able to take a trip to Nashville and there's a really prolific songwriter, his name is Gary Burr, and he was on stage, doing like a Q and a, and he basically, he gave us this really golden nugget that out that I never forgot.

And he said, Every song is a love song. And it's basically what he was trying to communicate was that you have to figure out what your song is about? And then write to that. So make sure that Everything you're writing, your lyrics, your chorus, your hook, your pre chorus, the word choices you're making, the rhyme schemes you're choosing, everything has to write to what he called the North Star or your concept

and I always say nothing new has been said in music? Everyone's basically said everything there is to say. The trick to a great song is saying something That's been said already, but in a new way, and that's where your concept comes in, because if you have an interesting concept for example, a metaphor song, like yellow submarine, or, something that's not.

Exactly what you're trying to say, but represents it in a creative way that really creative concept is going to be what lasts in terms of the effectiveness of and the punch that the song has yeah, I geeked out for a minute, but

that's that. No, I love that. And learning from these masters, and these mentors.

It's funny you mentioned Yellow Submarine because I've been reading Paul McCartney's book, The Lyrics. And he says the same thing. It's yes, I'm Paul McCartney, but that doesn't mean I didn't hear a who song and get that little stutter effect for cha. And then, oh, wait a second David Bowie then took that from me.

So it just one thing is leading to another, isn't it? You've studied a lot of the songwriting techniques with some of these mentors and masters. Tell us about that.

a really great opportunity in: 2018

She's written tons of music. A lot of people know her. Unfortunately, they know her from hosting American Idol for a short stint. But really, she's behind some of the biggest pop songs in modern history. She wrote for Pink and Jason Derulo, Kelly Clarkson, just to name a few. And she put on this three day Songwriting bootcamp in New York city.

And it was like a by application only. And we got, and there was like maybe 15 of us that got to go and she basically just, she we, she threw us in rooms with the groups of us for three days and said, write songs? You have a day to write and produce a song. And then she would come in and listen to what we had.

Destroy our hopes and dreams. And then we would start over.

No, pick your shell of a person back up.

Exactly. Cry a little bit, wipe the tears and then start. Yeah, no, that was amazing. And she just, she's really an incredible, incredibly talented writer and she's an incredible person. And it was it was really a privilege to get to do that.

And just, it was so intense. And inspiring and just really a special memory.

And I guess that brings us then, obviously you applied these techniques because now you have hundreds of songs with your own credits for multiple artists. And I want to get to this idea of sync and licensing placements on film and TV shows.

I think a lot of singer songwriters think if I'm not in a stool, on a bar at an open mic, I'm not getting my music out into the world or if I don't get thousands of Spotify downloads, but there, there's some other angles. And I think that takes us to the business side for you.

Oh, yeah, that's an excellent point with the whole Spotify barstool thing.

So sync licensing is something that I actually got into on accident when I was like 13. It's a cool story. I was at a local singer songwriter convention Near my hometown and they were doing like a, a, like a mini American Idol and I went up there and I sang this song that I had written and, I messed up and I was so nervous.

I thought I did a crap job. And then after I finished a publisher or one of the guys, I didn't know he was a publisher. He came up to me and he said, I think your song would do really well in TV. And I was like, okay, great. Tell me more, mind you, I'm 13. I have no idea what's going on. What are you talking about?

And I don't have any like parental supervision there. And, I'm just based, it's me and my 13 year old brain. And but he ended up being a really awesome guy. And he, and that, that's, he ended up. Helping me to record that song and it's been, it was my foray into the music licensing world.

back in, I think it was like: 2010

She was doing like a, she was doing like a podcast similar to this. And I had heard about it and I was like, Oh yeah, I did that way back then. Maybe I should get back into it. This was like when I was finishing college. And so I jumped right back into it and it just became my focus. I started getting some success after a couple of iterations and then, here we are. That was like seven years ago.

Yes. And these placements folks, we're not talking about esoteric TV and film. We're talking about USA network, Bravo, own, and more stuff. We watch this. This is legit. Tell us a little bit. And obviously we don't have time for a masterclass on sync placements, but what is the general step by step process that you went through to get these songs placed?

Yeah, so the quick 4 1 1 is essentially I like to say, I I like to give like a top down visual. So the top is, the TV show or the film,? And I like to call that the, the production company. So let's say Target for this example, they have a new commercial that they need music for.

So Target. Has on their team a music supervisor and it's this person's job to actually find the music. What the music supervisor will then do is they will go and reach into their basket of music licensing agencies and musicians. So the music licensing agencies, they're the companies that work to act as the middle people between the music makers and the music supervisors.

So they curate catalogs of music that works for film and TV. And then, of course, that's, after that is where the musicians come in. We submit, we create and submit our music to these licensing agencies for representation in those catalogs. And then hopefully they pitch the music and it gets placed. So that's the simple way of how it goes down.

So essentially, as a musician, you want to be looking to build relationships with music licensing agencies.

Fantastic. So if I'm a singer songwriter out there right now saying, Oh, this sounds intriguing. Where should we look?

You should definitely talk to me and I can definitely help you

figure out idea.

Number

one. Yes. Talk to me. I it's, I love to do that and help artists get connected and get started in that way. But if you want to go the DIY route, I would just say, do a quick YouTube search of music licensing, a couple videos, YouTube university will get you acquainted enough with the industry to know more or less what to expect.

And then the thing I would do right after that is go on Facebook. And if you have Facebook or LinkedIn and search music licensing groups, sync licensing groups, and there's tons of free. Free ones. And then join a couple and just start paying attention to what people are talking about.

Make some friends, try to get on some co writes see what you can do. And then slowly you'll find your way. That's how I did it, and it took me seven years, plus to get to that, to the point where I'm at now, but if you want to do it the DIY way, then I would definitely say start there.

And you touch on the seven years, there, there is this myth of course of the instant success and the, overnight superstar, but that's not real world, is it? No,

it's

not. No. Unfortunately, even if you think it happens, it doesn't, there's always something happening for years behind the scenes.

And yeah, it just takes the time. Got to put in the time.

Yes. And I guess touching on the idea of sharing and coaching and empowering, these future and up and coming songwriters that you work with. There was something about your experience with the mentors and the teachers.

You had both out in the world and at, school, but this has given you the encouragement to help others. And I'm curious where that comes from the heart, really why is it that you want to now coach and mentor the up and coming artists?

That's a great question. And I'm grateful you asked it because it's something that I don't think.

We talk about enough and it's it's a loaded answer? But the gist of it is the tech, the technological revolution and follow me here? With streaming and Spotify, as you mentioned a little earlier, it's created. A solution and a problem and the solution is that anybody can release their music that also happens to be the problem?

Because what it's done is it's created this huge oversupply compared to the. Similar demand,? So yes, you can release music without any, without anything but a couple of bucks,? And some recording gear,? Which is amazing, but at the same time, because you can do that, everybody else can do that.

And so now it's even harder, potentially harder than it was years before this technology to rise above the noise. And so what I see this, What I see as a result of this is artist burnout. And so many talented, hardworking artists who cannot figure out how to work the system to be able to actually build some sort of financial pathway out.

So what that's. That's heartbreaking to watch because eventually what's going to happen is the few that have the resources, the time, the energy, whatever to continue until they figure it out. We'll do that. And that's great. But the majority are going to get burnt out. They're going to run out of.

Motivation, inspiration, money, time, whatever it is, and I hate to see that happen, especially when there is this other really lucrative pathway in sync licensing that doesn't require any of the posting to social media, any of trying to get on the playlists, all this stuff that's so exhausting and so disheartening when it feels like we're shouting to a wall.

At least that's how it feels to me, so that's my. A big piece of my motivation behind this is to be like, Hey, come here. Let me show you this other way. Don't worry. I get it. I see you. I see the struggle. You don't have to do that. Just come on over here and look at this great other thing.

And I'm hoping I can pull a couple of people. With me.

I love that. And I love the fact that we're overlapping creative technique, the songwriting aspects of things, but also this kind of real world business side. I've had several now managers, also artists, but managers talk about being the CEO.

Of your own, creative business. So you have to be the record producer. You have to be the, artist management and so forth, artist development for yourself in order to pull that through. Because that's the point, right? To get our work out into the world. If we're just playing in our bedrooms, that's one thing.

But we do want to get the work out. Absolutely. How have you found that balance? And especially now as you try to teach up and coming songwriters, how are you teaching them to balance? You're the artist and you're the management. Yeah.

I have found that it's all about getting really clear with yourself on what you ultimately want to be doing day to day.

And then building systems to be able to outsource the things you don't want to do when it makes sense. Cause you look at a CEO of a company, they're not the accountant. Also, they're not the marketing manager. Also they're directing the accountant and they're directing the marketing manager.

But at some point it makes more sense for them to hire out, especially to hire people who are better than them at that particular skill. So at first, yeah, it's about learning how to be that. Producer learning how to be that marketing person enough to be able to make some forward motion But then it's also about knowing.

Okay. I've got some traction here Now it's time for me to give the reins over to somebody who can do it better than me Who gets my vision who believes in my music who believes in me? We vibe, and work together as a partnership to help Move the thing forward. So that's how I've been able to balance that out is knowing when I need to step back actually, and let somebody else do it instead.

And like basically knowing what my strengths and weaknesses are and where I shine and outsourcing the rest.

Yes. And if we think of it as a business, we've got to think of, profit and loss. We got to think of income and revenue. The money has to hit the jar as it were. So thinking about that cashflow, you're right.

You've got to look at all the avenues, don't we? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Very good. As you think ahead and think about the listeners that might be joining us here in our conversation, what insights do you have as we look forward to what's coming? We've talked about streaming, we've talked about licensing and so forth.

Do you see anything over the horizon? That we need to be keeping our eyes on. I just watched a documentary on Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson putting together Thriller. And it was like two years before MTV but they knew there was a thing called MTV coming, nobody but Quincy Jones would say.

Yeah, I'm planning for the future two years from now when this album comes out, right? And Michael wanting to make films instead of videos. But is there anything that you've been having your antenna up for?

By the way, you need to share that documentary with me. Okay, I will do that. Yes, for sure. So I don't know if you're aware or listeners are aware, but Spotify recently announced that they are introducing a Pay a streaming threshold, minimum threshold to receive payouts.

to give you some perspective,: 1000

So they're saying, Okay, it was hard to make money before now. It's 3 cents harder, and if, and of course, if you think of it cumulatively and in terms of, how the money flows in their system it makes sense, but it's another reason to redirect some of your energy from the streaming towards something else that has a more.

Secure or higher rate of return for your effort So I would say just keep that in the back of your mind as you go along submitting your music and you know Counting up your pennies yeah, that's what i'll say. Yeah, that's

good insight Nisma, what a pleasure talking with you. Where can we find you, your work and make that connection where we can learn from you?

Yeah, you can reach me on my website. It's just nismaosman. com. And you can book a, you can just reach me there. You can chat with me, book a call, free call just to see what's up and say hi, or you can reach me on Instagram At Nisma Osman.

Oh, fantastic. What a great discussion. And listeners, I hope you've enjoyed this.

She's given us a roadmap. There were several bullet points. If you weren't driving, or operating heavy machinery, you could take notes, rewind the tape here and go back and take notes. We've also got a lot of great contacts and insights that Nisma has shared. A real roadmap for the future of This intersection, I liked what we've found, the overlap between the creativity, the business, the mentorship and education.

It's a really dynamic world. I love the world of music. There are so many facets to it, but you've really narrowed the field of what we need to be thinking about. And it's much appreciated. My guest has been Nisma Osman. And you can find her, as she said, on those channels. I'll put those in the show notes so we all can find them and listeners come back again, next time we're going to continue our around the world journeys.

We've been talking to creative practitioners on all corners of the world about how they get inspired. How they organize ideas, and as we've heard today, making the connections and getting the confidence to launch our work out into the world. So until next time, I'm Mark Stinson, and we've been unlocking your world of creativity.​